66% of Funding to Stop the AI Apocalypse Comes from Crypto Donors

Have you ever suffered from existential dread about what will happen when the smart contracts will be smarter than you? Or that a blockchain can become self aware and force humans to bend to its will? Or maybe that a super AI will simply repurpose all the molecules on earth to produce paper clips? Well, worry no more because the crypto community is on the case.

Machine Intelligence Research Institute

The Machine Intelligence Research Institute, a non-profit organization investigating safety issues related to the development of above-human-level artificial intelligence (Strong AI), has recently released its fundraising statistics showing strong support from the cryptocurrency community.

Their 2017 annual fundraiser raised just over $2.5 million, more than doubling the target of $1.25 million. And 66% the of funds donated during this fundraiser (about $1.66 million) were in the form of cryptocurrency (mainly bitcoin and ethereum), the non-profit revealed.

In fact, the largest donation came toward the very end of the fundraiser in the form of an ethereum donation worth $763,970 from Vitalik Buterin, the inventor and co-founder of the smart contracts cryptocurrency. Vitalik’s donation represents the third-largest single contribution ever the research institute received to date in all its fundraisers.

Crypto Donors Will Save the Future

Founded in the year 2000 as the Singularity Institute, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute works to ensure the survival and freedom of the human race alongside super intelligent machines, an important issue rapidly leaping from science fiction into reality. This news shows another example of how the redistribution of wealth from old money to early adopters of technology via the rise of cryptocurrency can create a better future for all.

Other recent examples include the $86 million bitcoin charity Pineapple Fund supporting the development of MDMA as a treatment for PTSD, testing universal basic income in Africa, open source software and similar innovative projects.

If you want to participate in a futuristic charity too, but don’t have millions in crypto to donate, UNICEF recently launched a new initiative which harnesses the power of GPU mining to create a new form of philanthropy.

What other futuristic concerns should crypto investors focus their philanthropic efforts on? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Do you like to research and read about Bitcoin technology? Check out Bitcoin.com’s Wiki page for an in-depth look at Bitcoin’s innovative technology and interesting history.

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Avi Mizrahi

Avi Mizrahi is an economist and entrepreneur who has been covering Bitcoin as a journalist since 2013. He has spoken about the promise of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology at numerous financial conferences around the world, from London to Hong-Kong.

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